Among Waukegan's favorite sons and daughters, for me it's a toss-up between Jack Benny and Ray Bradbury. Except for this week.

Others may include Otto Graham or Jerome Whitehead or Jerry Orbach as their favorites, but none of them penned the classic, "Fahrenheit 451." Bradbury did.

During Banned Books Week, which runs through Saturday, the late author — who even has a park named for him in a quiet city neighborhood off Washington Street — gets my vote for Waukegan's favorite son on the strength of the 1953 book that paints a dim picture of a future America.

With some of our national government figures doing good imitations of "doublespeak" — war is peace; peace is war — from George Orwell's "1984," it's a good time to remember that in certain countries across the globe and communities across the nation, books are banned, like they are in "Fahrenheit 451."

Banned Books Week is an annual event that celebrates reading and the freedom to read. Librarians, bookstores (those that are left), book publishers, teachers and, of course, journalists, are big supporters of Banned Books Week. Especially this year.

The coalition of groups that sponsor Banned Books Week is highlighting this year the importance of the First Amendment, which guarantees our right to read. That guarantee even includes reading so-called unpopular or "dangerous" books, some of which are found in your local libraries.

I've always opined that when the real revolution comes along, journalists, librarians and nuns will be lined up shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the firing squads, rounded up for railing against a new regime's crackdown on the First Amendment and its collecting of books to be burned.

Which is what "Fahrenheit 451" is all about. The book used to be required reading in high school English classes. I hope it still is.

If you are unfamiliar with the book, its title stems from the temperature at which paper burns. In Bradbury's America of the future, books are banned, and his fictional firemen don't go into homes to save people. Instead, they go into their houses to confiscate their books and then burn them.

"Fahrenheit 451" is Bradbury's cautionary tale about government gone awry and citizens ignoring reading and being dependent on what was "new media" back in the 1950s — television. It resonates further with today's "new media."

Today, we don't have books banned willy-nilly, but, increasingly, books are challenged to be banned for content and language.

Unlike days past, when books were yanked from library shelves because of controversial political ideas, the current list of the 10 books sought to be banned mainly from school libraries have a lot to do with LGBT themes, or language that is sexually explicit, according to the Chicago-based American Library Association. One of the books, a children's tome, was written by Bill Cosby and challenged because of the criminal sexual allegations lodged against the once-loved entertainer.

The ALA has been compiling its "banned book" list since 2000, and looking back, Harry Potter books have made the list, along with some perennials, such as "The Catcher in the Rye," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "Of Mice and Men," "The Color Purple" and others. Lots of them.

Not on the list is "Fahrenheit 451." But with the current fiery culture and diminished value of reading being fanned from Washington, D.C., it may only be a matter of time.

Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.